December Light and Close Quarters With Coyote Point Yacht Club

The fourth Sunday of our series began beneath a pewter sky, the kind that asks for patience. Morning brought no wind — only stillness — and even by early afternoon the air refused to stir. We delayed the start once, then again, and finally, at 1:25 p.m., the faintest movement arrived: a meager handful of knots, just enough to coax seven boats into motion.

Will O’ The Wind took the rabbit start, a small spark in a sluggish afternoon. Lorelei, Paradigm, Sirius, Sweet Grapes, Surprise! and Ventus followed, pushing gently into a course built of looping arcs: from the marina to C, Z, 8, back to C, back to Z, again to 8 (this time to port), one last swing to Z (port), and home.

Sweet Grapes leapt forward on starboard, bright and eager, but the moment she tacked to port her advantage slipped away. Ventus seized the opening and rounded C first, followed by Sweet Grapes and Paradigm, with Surprise! keeping steady watch in fourth. The same order held at Z, though Paradigm narrowed the gap like a shadow drawing closer.

On the downwind run to 8, spinnakers bloomed — Paradigm and Lorelei’s catching what little breeze there was. Paradigm and Surprise! slipped past Sweet Grapes, while Ventus clung to the lead. But the fleet was restless and the wind fickle. Sweet Grapes, with her 150 jib and whisker pole set just so, found new life. She slid inside at 8, reclaiming her place in a rounding so tight it felt like a whispered duel.

Back toward C, Sweet Grapes now led the procession, followed by Paradigm and Surprise!, with Ventus pressing from behind. That order held to Z, though somewhere along the way Ventus edged past Surprise!.

The next run to 8 saw every boat reach for its downwind tricks — spinnakers unfurling, poles swinging, sails trembling for any breath of motion. Paradigm, powered by her chute, once again overtook Sweet Grapes. Sirius, defeated by the fading wind, retired from the race. For a moment the talk was of shortening the course, but the ebb had arrived — slow, steady, and on our side. It would carry us to Z more quickly, and so we pressed on.

Then came the moment that shifted everything: Paradigm rounded 8 the wrong way, forgetting it was a port rounding. The race committee’s call rang out across the water. The correction cost her the lead, and Sweet Grapes stepped into the vacancy with quiet certainty.

The ebb tightened the fleet toward Z, funneling the leaders into a single, tense approach. Paradigm, finding a cleaner line, stole back the mark and rounded first, followed by Sweet Grapes and Surprise!. From there the three sailed together — a small convoy bound for the finish, the late-day sun easing through the thinning clouds.

Gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, Surprise! began to edge ahead. Sweet Grapes overtook Paradigm. And so the order at the line was set:
Surprise!, Sweet Grapes, Paradigm.

But time is the final arbiter. Once the numbers were settled, the podium shifted:

1st — Surprise!
2nd — Will O’ The Wind
3rd — Paradigm
4th — Sweet Grapes

A quiet start, a wind that never quite committed, and yet a race full of reversals and small triumphs — just the sort of afternoon that lives long in the telling.